Game mechanics

Starting the game

Upon starting the game, the player will find Bob the Necromancer facing a building, such as a house. Clicking or tapping^[1] the house will cause Bob to fire a magic bolt at the building, dealing damage to it. After dealing sufficient damage, the house will crumble, dropping skulls (the primary currency for this game) and possibly letting out one or several panicking villagers running around ablaze. Tapping/clicking those villagers will also yield skulls. Collecting skulls and using them to purchase monsters and upgrades will give Bob and the monsters higher damage in order to take on more difficult challenges.

Skulls

Main article: Skulls

Skull is an in-game currency that allows players to buy and upgrade monsters. Players receive them through destroying buildings and killing villagers, also players can buy them at the Diamond Deal store.

Diamonds

Main article: Diamonds

Diamonds is a secondary currency in the game. Players use diamonds on skipping progress and upgrading buildings in Hell, and to use them in Diamond Store. Players can purchase Diamonds for real money, but they also get dropped by killing villagers.

Critical damage

As the player progresses through the game, when the player taps/click it is noticeable that, sometimes, Bob's damage will pop up in a red, bigger font. This means Critical damage. Critical damage has a base chance of 1% and deals double tap/click damage. It is possible to increase the critical damage percentage, but only through particular monster's skills (namely The Big Plague's skill Small Pox and Swarm of Bats' NANANANANANA). There are few items that increase critical damage percentage.

Sleeping

If players do not deal tap damage for 30 seconds then Bob will start falling asleep because he is inactive. At the start of the game it has no effects on gameplay, but as player start to receive items such as Power Potion then the sleeping will grant an effect based on item's brief description.

Progression

Every building destroyed counts towards Difficulty progression. Each difficulty contains a gauntlet of 10 buildings (reduceable via items or deals). All the buildings in the same difficulty level have the same health point except for the last one, which has 4 times higher health than the rest. The last one also always lets out 5 screaming villagers (meaning more skulls). Every 5th level of difficulty, after the last building of that difficulty level, the player will face a boss, namely, the Blacksmith's Union. The boss has 5 times the base health point of that difficulty level.

Bosses

Main article: Bosses

They are a bunch of warriors engaging the player while a wizard floats above them in a bubble. The player has 30 seconds to defeat them. Items, such as the magic ring, can extend that time. If the player fails to defeat the boss in time, you are thrown back into the last stage of the last difficulty you faced. There is no punishment for not defeating the boss within the time limit. The Blacksmith's Union's wizard will sometimes carry another bubble linked to his' by a tether. That second bubble contains White Orbs.

Broken Orbs

Main article: Orbs

Defeating the wizard (boss) will burst the bubble, causing the Orbs to fall on the floor and break. These broken orbs will then be put into the player's inventory. In their broken state, orbs are useless, but upon either activating a time portal, or using the Diamond purchase skill Fast Time Travel, the broken Orbs will be repaired.

Map

Main article: Map

The game is divided by areas in a large map. Each area comprises a certain number of difficulties, ranging from 20 at the beginning of the first map up to 1000 at the end of the third map; the game has since been expanded to seven maps, commonly referred to as worlds. The ending difficulty of the seventh world map is 5000. Also added to the game is "nightmare" versions of each of the seven world maps where the difficulties are the original difficulty times 5 plus 4000. The map works like sort of a dungeon: By clearing an area, you unlock the areas adjacent to it, which might lead to treasures or harder areas. The goal of the game is to clear all areas of the map, then to progress on to the world map, and clear the subsequent kingdoms.

Treasure Items

Main article: Items

In game exist various items that you can receive through chest, crafting and Devil Deals. Beside White Orbs and Minions, Items play big roll in game progression.

Item Stacking

Items in this game, with a few notable exceptions, stack additively, not multiplicatively. And they not only stack additively within the same kind of item, but they stack additively across the entire Items category. So, following a simple reasoning, it is easy to observe that stacking several items has diminishing returns and why it is cumbersome to do so.

Say the player has the Zombie Horde minion doing 1000 damage and no items. The player collects a Rare Zombie Horde's Eye giving 50% bonus to the Zombie Horde's damage. The Zombie Horde will now do 1500 damage. After collecting a second Rare Zombie Horde's Eye, the Zombie Horde now has a 100% bonus to damage, effectively doubling the damage to 2000.

If the player gets two more Rare Zombie Horde's Eye (a total of 4), the Zombie Horde now has a 200% bonus to damage, so the effective damage is now 3000.

If the player now gets a Rare Power Potion giving 50% bonus to damage when Bob sleeps, the Zombie Horde now has a 250% bonus damage since different items stack additively, so the effective damage is now 3500.

Despite having the same value of bonus (50% damage), each new item has a lower actual effect :

1st item : effective damage 1500, so 50% improvement over base damage
2nd item : effective damage 2000, so 33.33% improvement over 1 item
3nd item : effective damage 2500, so 25% improvement over 2 items
4th item : effective damage 3000, so 20% improvement over 3 items
5th item : effective damage 3500, so 16.67% improvement over 4 items
and so on

DPS

How_DPS_is_working_in_ZombIdle — How DPS is working in ZombIdle

Explanation by Lachhh

Total DPS consists of a few factors which are multiplied together. Those factors are:

Non-tap monsters' DPS (base)
Monsters' passive abilities
Monsters' active abilities
White Orbs
Black Orbs
Items
Hell
Achievements
Carl the Monolith
Shards
Deals

Non-tap monsters' DPS

Damage: D₁ x 1.035^(L-1)

Where D₁ is the damage of the monster on level 1, and L is the current level of the monster. This formula only calculates the damage you get from buying the next level of the monster.

If you want to get the total damage of the monster, you have to calculate the sum of all levels from 1 to L using a geometric series formula.

Total damage: D₁ x (1 - 1.035^(L-1)) / (1 - 1.035) + D₁

Monsters' passive abilities

From monsters multiplier = [Ability #1] * [Ability #2] * (1 + [Ability #3] * [Monster's level]) * [Dem Big Pockets]

Ability #1 - Adds 25% minion's dps (substitute 1.25 into formula if bought, otherwise 1)
Ability #2 - Adds 50% minion's dps (substitute 1.50 into formula if bought, otherwise 1)
Ability #3 - Adds 2% minion's dps per minion's level (substitute 0.02 into formula if bought, otherwise 0)
Giant Zombie's Dem Big Pockets ability adds 5% non-tap monsters' dps (susbtitute 1.05 into formula for any monster if bought, otherwise 1)

Monsters' active abilities

From skills multiplier = 1 + ([Monster specific skill] + [King's Presence]) * [Son of the Lich]

Monster specific skill - two minions have specific for them skill which insceases only their dps.
- Spectral Reposession - Adds 400% Specter's dps (only applicable for Blue Specter, substitute 4 into formula if activated, otherwise 0)
- Pastafury - Adds 700% Squid's dps (only applicable for Flying Squid, substitute 7 into formula if activated, otherwise 0)
King's Presence (The Tomb King) - Adds 100% dps to all non-tap monsters (substitute 1 into formula if activated, otherwise 0)
Son of the Lich - Doubles skills' effect (substitute 2 into formula if activated, otherwise 1)

White Orbs

Main article: Orbs

From orbs multiplier = [# of White Orbs] * [% per White Orb] * (1 + [# of Black Orbs] * 0.5) / 100%

Black Orbs

Main article: Orbs

From black orbs multiplier = [Black Necklace multiplier] * [Carl's Toenails multiplier]

Black Necklace

If player possesses Black Necklace, then the following formula gives the correct multiplier

Black Necklace multiplier = 2^{[# of Black Orbs]}

otherwise the multiplier is equal 1

Carl's Toenails

If player possesses Carl's Toenails, then the following formula gives the correct multiplier

Carl's Toenails multiplier = 2 * 3^{[# of Black Orbs]}

otherwise the multiplier is equal 1

Items

Main article: Items

Hell

Main article: Hell

There are many buildings in Hell which enhance Bob and his team in various ways. Armageddon Armory is the building which gives a constant boost to all monsters DPS depending on its level.

Level	Cost	Effect	Multiplier increase*	Construction Time
1	25 Diamonds	Add 100%to non-tap monsters	x2	30 minutes
2	50 Diamonds	Add 500% to non-tap monsters	x3	4 hours
3	100 Diamonds	Add 2,300% to non-tap monsters	x4	12 hours
4	200 Diamonds	Add 12,000% to non-tap monsters	~x5	1 day (24 hours)
5	500 Diamonds	Add 60,000% to non-tap monsters	~x5	2 days (48 hours)
6	750 Diamonds	Add 450,000% to non-tap monsters	~x7.5	3 days (72 hours)
7	1000 Diamonds	Add 2,250,000% to non-tap monsters	~x5	5 days (120 hours)
Total	2625 Diamonds	Add 2,250,000% to non-tap monsters	x22,501	280 hours 30 minutes

* relative to previous multiplier.

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

Carl the Monolith

Main article: Carl the Monolith

Carl the Monolith is the last and the most expensive creature from hell Bob can summon, however his presence is indipsensable. Each level of Carl multiplies DPS of each monster by 3, which means the overall DPS is multiplied by 3.

From Monolith = 3^{[Carl's level]}

Shards

Shards are the most effective way to increase overall DPS. Currently there are 3 types of shards:

Splinters - the smallest and the weakest but also the cheapest. Splinters multiply DPS ( War Splinter) by 1.1
Shards - the more powerful version, can be made from 3 splinters of the same type. Shards multiply DPS ( War Shard) by 2
Big Shards (Fat Shards) - most powerful but the most expensive as well. Currently there's no way to obtain them other than crafting. Big Shards multiply DPS ( Mayhem Shard) by 6

Shard conversion

By using Forge player can convert weaker shards to the stronger ones:

3 splinters to 1 shard results in ~x1.50262960 DPS increase.
2 shards to 1 big shard results in x1.5 DPS increase.

Deals

Main article: Deals

In Zombidle there are two special deals which boost total DPS:

The Touch of Fire (Diamond Deal, costs 5 Diamonds) - DPS x4.5
Devil Deal - DPS x2.

Both are limited to only 60 seconds. By upgrading Chaos Resort you can increase the multiplier of each deal.

Total damage calculation

According to Lachhh, the following is the formula to calculate the monster's damage:

A x B x C x D x E x F

Where:

A is base damage
B is Passive Skill bonus modifier
C is Active Skill bonus modifier
D is Item bonus modifier
E is Hell Building bonus modifier
F is Orbs bonus modifier

Base damage refers to the raw damage of the monster following the aforementioned formula.

Passive Skills are the skills purchased with skulls that every monster have, some have 3 and an Active Skill, others have 4. But all monsters have at least 3 skills that modify their damage: one that increases their DPS by 25%, another one that increases their dps by 50% and a final one that increases their DPS by 1~2% for each level they have (also affects their growth).

Active skills are skills that, once activated, increases one/all monster's DPS. In example, Blue Spectre's Spectral Repossession. It increases Blue Spectre's DPS by 400%, which translates into five times it's current damage.

Items are the ones acquired by opening Red/Blue chests or purchasing with White Orbs. There are some which increases a specific monster's DPS, and there are others which increase all monsters overall damage.

Hell provides 2 buildings that directly affect DPS: Armageddon Armory (for non tap monsters) and Golden Shower of Deathness (for Bob specifically). So when taking damage calculation for non tap monsters, use the damage bonus from the Armory in E. When calculating Bob's damage, use GSoD's damage bonus.

Finally, Orbs grants damage bonus to ALL creatures (including Bob). Please refer to the page (link in Progression section) for further explanation.

If you want to calculate the total damage done, including the multipliers you can use the following formula for damage:

Damage: D₁ x ( 1,25x 1,5x1,02^L) x (C x D x F x E) x L/(L - 1)

Tap damage

Bob's passive abilities
Items
Hell
Critical hit

Skulls

Black Orbs
Monsters' passive abilities
Monsters' active abilities
Items
Achievements
Hell
Shards
Deals

Monsters' Skull Cost

Skull cost: S₁ x 1.05^(L-1)

Where S₁ is the skull cost of the monster at level 1, and L is the current level of the monster. This formula only calculates the skull cost for buying the next level of the monster. If you want to get the total costs you have to calculate the sum of this formula in the same way as with the damage formula.

Hell

Main article: Hell

There are many buildings in Hell which enhance Bob and his team in various ways. Corporate Bank of Capitalism is the building which gives a constant boost to skull's value depending on its level.

Level	Cost	Effect	Multiplier increase*	Construction Time
Level 1	40 Diamonds	Add 100% skull's value	x2	30 minutes
Level 2	75 Diamonds	Add 500% skull's value	x3	4 hours
Level 3	150 Diamonds	Add 2,300% skull's value	x4	12 hours
Level 4	300 Diamonds	Add 12,000% skull's value	~x5	1 day (24 hours)
Level 5	750 Diamonds	Add 60,000% skull's value	~x5	2 days (48 hours)
Level 6	1000 Diamonds	Add 450,000% skull's value	~x7.5	3 days (72 hours)
Level 7	1000 Diamonds	Add 2,250,000% skull's value	~x5	5 days (120 hours)
Level 8	1000 Diamonds	Add 11,250,000% skull's value	~x5	5 days (120 hours)
Level 9	1000 Diamonds	Add 56,250,000% skull's value	~x5	5 days (120 hours)
Total	5315 Diamonds	Add 56,250,000% skull's value	x562,501	520 hours 30 minutes

* relative to previous multiplier.